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Introduction

As someone with a lifelong enthusiasm for word-games and musical puns, Britten might have appreciated the irony in a customs official’s decision to confiscate some of his manuscripts before he and Peter Pears sailed home from the United States in March 1942, after a transatlantic stay of nearly three years—even though the documents did not in fact contain any coded messages in musical notation. Once on the transatlantic voyage, Britten was compelled (with Mozartian facility) to write out from memory the music of the Hymn to St Cecilia on which he had been working before being deprived of the manuscript, though he did not attempt to complete the Clarinet Concerto for Benny Goodman of which the sketches had also been confiscated. Pears wrote to Elizabeth Mayer, their adoptive mother-figure in New York, on 19 April to report that Britten had finished reconstructing the Hymn (‘very lovely!’), and that while on the ship he had also written ‘7 Christmas carols for women’s voices & Harp! Very sweet and chockfull of charm!’. Britten had purchased a poetry anthology in Halifax, Nova Scotia, as he set out on the voyage, and this provided the source for most of the carols’ texts. When the two men arrived back in the United Kingdom, Britten’s freshly written manuscripts were also (temporarily) confiscated, this time by a British official.

Given Britten’s later fondness for boys’ voices, it comes as something of a surprise to note that A Ceremony of Carols was initially conceived for a female choir. By September 1942, Britten was referring to the carols in correspondence as being for ‘children’s voices’. But it was by a women’s choir that the first performance of the initial set of seven was given, on 5 December in the Library of Norwich Castle: the Fleet Street Choir, with Margaret Ritchie (soprano solo), was accompanied on this occasion by Gwendolen Mason (harp) and conducted by T B Lawrence. These same forces gave the set its first broadcast, on the BBC Home Service on 25 January 1943 (along with Hymn to St Cecilia). Later in the year, Britten conceived the idea of framing the piece with a ‘Procession’ and ‘Recession’ (a symmetrical dramatic device encountered in many of his later works), and based these passages on the Magnificat antiphon for the second Vespers of the Nativity, which Alec Robertson (an expert on Gregorian chant) had sent him. Britten added a pastiche plainsong ‘Alleluia’ to the authentic chant ‘Hodie Christus natus est’, and many years later, in the autumn of 1971, he transformed this additional idea into a short three-part canon in honour of Robertson’s eightieth birthday.

In the summer of 1943, Britten added a further carol to the set (‘That yongë child’), along with a new Interlude for solo harp, and his preference for boys’ voices was now strengthened by several memorable performances of the work in the run-up to Christmas. Britten wrote to Elizabeth Mayer on 8 December:

[the carols] have had a series of thrilling shows by a choir of little Welsh boys (from a school in the poorest part of Swansea) and a great Russian harpist, Maria Korchinska. This has meant many journeys to Wales to rehearse, & then they all (35!) came up to town & sang the piece many times, & to record it […] People seem to love the piece, & altho’ it has been only printed about a month, the 1st edition is just on sold out.

The ‘little Welsh boys’ came from the Morriston School (which is now a comprehensive), and they gave the revised version of the score its first performance on 4 December at Wigmore Hall in London, under Britten’s direction; the Russian harpist mentioned here had already worked with Britten at the GPO Film Unit when he was composing scores for documentaries prior to his American sojourn, and her playing features on the soundtrack to the celebrated film Night Mail (1936), with its well-known script by W H Auden. The Morriston Boys’ recording of A Ceremony of Carols was issued by Decca in 1944. In a letter to Mary Behrend written on 9 December 1943, Britten commented: ‘I think the little boys were enchanting—the occasional roughness was easily overweighed by their freshness & naivety—something very special.’ These were qualities that the composer was later to appreciate in the Wandsworth School Boys’ Choir and the trebles of Westminster Cathedral Choir, with whom he frequently collaborated in the 1960s, though he also enjoyed working with more polished groups such as the Copenhagen Boys’ Choir (with whom he recorded A Ceremony of Carols in 1953) and the Vienna Boys’ Choir.

A Ceremony of Carols was dedicated to Ursula Nettleship, a singing teacher and choral trainer who was later responsible for assembling the choir that took part in the first performance of Britten’s Saint Nicolas in 1948.

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Two of Benjamin Britten’s greatest Christmas choral works are performed by the choir of Trinity College Cambridge and Stephen Layton. The cantata Saint Nicolas tells the story of the saint and his exploits, and features one of the composer’s celeb ...» More

This album is not yet available for downloadHYP202CDs Super-budget price sampler — Deleted

'More than just a highlight sampler. This is a classy collection, brought together with a great deal of care and attention to musical programming seldom found in this kind of CD … A stocking-filler any music lover would appreciate' (Scotland ...» More

Today Christ was born:
today the Saviour appeared:
today on earth the angels sing:
the archangels rejoice:
today the righteous celebrate saying:
glory to God in the highest.
Alleluia!

Britten’s first work for boys’ voices was written (together with the Hymn to St Cecilia) during the composer’s perilous voyage home from America in 1942.

This cycle of medieval and sixteenth-century poems is preceded and followed by the plainsong antiphon ‘Hodie’ from the Christmas Eve Vespers, the source of some of the melodic cells used in various sections of the work. As with the earlier Hymn to the Virgin Britten clearly saw in this cycle the chance to write music that would blossom in the reverberant acoustic of church or cathedral. This may be heard in the canonic writing in ‘This little Babe’ which precipitates its vocal lines with awe-inspiring power amplified by the natural acoustic to truly dramatic effect; an effect which can scarcely be imagined from an examination of the score and a knowledge of the slender forces employed. Similarly, in ‘In freezing winter night’ the use of canonic writing greatly adds to the extraordinary atmosphere, as does Britten’s employment of plain and elaborated versions of the same melodic line which are heard simultaneously. Throughout this fifteen-minute masterpiece Britten blends elements of modal, major and minor tonalities in a wide chromatic range that achieves great variety despite the obvious limitations of compass entailed in writing for treble voices. At the centre of A Ceremony of Carols lies the ‘Interlude’ for solo harp based on the plainchant. Its bell-like harmonics and its use of the pentatonic scale inevitably remind one of the Balinese gamelan orchestra to which Britten had been introduced for the first time shortly before leaving America. Bell sounds are also to be heard in ‘Wolcum Yole!’ and ‘Adam lay i-bounden’, an idea the composer was to develop more fully in the opera Peter Grimes. Britten was not alone in his love of such sonorities; both Rachmaninov and Stravinsky, influenced no doubt by early and strong influences of the Russian Orthodox Church, professed a lifelong fascination with the sound of bells.

That yongë child when it gan weep
With song she lullèd him asleep:
That was so sweet a melody
It passèd alle minstrelsy.
The nightingalë sang also:
Her song is hoarse and nought thereto:
Whoso attendeth to her song
And leaveth the first then doth he wrong.

This little babe so few days old,
Is come to rifle Satan’s fold;
All hell doth at his presence quake,
Though he himself for cold do shake;
For in this weak unarmèd wise
The gates of hell he will surprise.

With tears he fights and wins the field,
His naked breast stands for a shield;
His battering shot are babish cries,
His arrows looks of weeping eyes,
His martial ensigns Cold and Need,
And feeble Flesh his warrior’s steed.

His camp is pitchèd in a stall,
His bulwark but a broken wall;
The crib his trench, haystalks his stakes,
Of shepherds he his muster makes;
And thus, as sure his foe to wound,
The angels’ trumps alarum sound.

My soul, with Christ join thou in fight;
Stick to the tents that he hath pight.
Within his crib his surest ward;
This little Babe will be thy guard.
If thou wilt foil thy foes with joy,
Then flit not from this heavenly Boy.

This little Babe so few days old,
Is come to rifle Satan’s fold;
All hell doth at his presence quake,
Though he himself for cold do shake;
For in this weak unarmèd wise
The gates of hell he will surprise.

With tears he fights and wins the field,
His naked breast stands for a shield;
His battering shot are babish cries,
His arrows looks of weeping eyes,
His martial ensigns Cold and Need,
And feeble Flesh his warrior’s steed.

His camp is pitchèd in a stall,
His bulwark but a broken wall;
The crib his trench, haystalks his stakes,
Of shepherds he his muster makes;
And thus, as sure his foe to wound,
The angels’ trumps alarum sound.

My soul, with Christ join thou in fight;
Stick to the tents that he hath pight.
Within his crib his surest ward;
This little Babe will be thy guard.
If thou wilt foil thy foes with joy,
Then flit not from this heavenly Boy.

This little babe so few days old
Is come to rifle Satan’s fold;
All hell doth at his presence quake
Though he himself for cold do shake;
For in this weak unarmèd wise
The gates of hell he will surprise.

With tears he fights and wins the field,
His naked breast stands for a shield;
His battering shot are babish cries,
His arrows looks of weeping eyes,
His martial ensigns Cold and Need
And feeble Flesh his warrior’s steed.

His camp is pitchèd in a stall,
His bulwark but a broken wall;
The crib his trench, haystalks his stakes;
Of shepherds he his muster makes;
And thus, as sure his foe to wound,
The angels’ trumps alarum sound.

My soul, with Christ join thou in fight,
Stick to the tents that he hath pight.
Within his crib is surest ward,
This little Babe will be thy guard.
If thou wilt foil thy foes with joy,
Then flit not from this heavenly Boy.

This little babe so few days old,
Is come to rifle Satan’s fold;
All hell doth at his presence quake,
Though he himself for cold do shake;
For in this weak unarmèd wise
The gates of hell he will surprise.

With tears he fights and wins the field,
His naked breast stands for a shield;
His battering shot are babish cries,
His arrows looks of weeping eyes,
His martial ensigns Cold and Need,
And feeble Flesh his warrior’s steed.

His camp is pitchèd in a stall,
His bulwark but a broken wall;
The crib his trench, haystalks his stakes,
Of shepherds he his muster makes;
And thus, as sure his foe to wound,
The angels’ trumps alarum sound.

My soul, with Christ join thou in fight;
Stick to the tents that he hath pight.
Within his crib his surest ward;
This little Babe will be thy guard.
If thou wilt foil thy foes with joy,
Then flit not from this heavenly Boy.

Behold, a silly tender babe,
In freezing winter night,
In homely manger trembling lies.
Alas, a piteous sight!
The inns are full; no man will yield
This little pilgrim bed.
But forced he is with silly beasts
In crib to shroud his head.
This stable is a Prince’s court,
This crib his chair of State;
The beasts are parcel of his pomp,
The wooden dish his plate.
The persons in that poor attire
His royal liveries wear;
The Prince himself is come from heav’n;
This pomp is prizèd there.
With joy approach, O Christian wight,
Do homage to thy King.
And highly praise his humble pomp,
Which he from Heav’n doth bring.

Pleasure it is
To hear, iwis,
The Birdès sing.
The deer in the dale,
The sheep in the vale,
The corn springing.
God’s purveyance
For sustenance,
It is for man.
Then we always
To give him praise,
And thank him than,
And thank him than.